I commented on it on another board that I'm on... It was epic... Two freak'n billionaires acting like a cople of jr high kids... I've lost all respect for Icahn... Never had much respect for Ackerman

the herbalife drama is a real event for this gentlman

for the record, kenny the kangaroo sides with ackerman. herbalife, amway, etc are crocks of crap.

KtK, it's not about Herbalife, it's about Herbalife stock.

That may sound a bit strange but I learned a long time ago that in the short term, the underlying business fundamentals and the stock itself can track in very different directions.

Ackman is gambling that someone won't "call away" his position. It's a very high risk gamble for him. Icahn has the upper hand in this battle. If you watch the way the stock trended during their debate on CNBC you would see how the smart money is playing this one.

I'm not a fan of Herbalifes business model at all, nor am I a fan of Icahn. In this case though, I'd put my money alongside Carl Icahn.

You are exactly right, and thats why kenny the kangaroo will never have the stones or convinction to short a stock. A stock may be a true stinker, but sometimes the market really does not care as long as the company is meeting the market's expectations.

For the record, David Einhorn's book on the subject of short selling is compelling.

columbia wrote:Any concerns that the stocks (in general) are over valued these days?

I'm looking for a 10% correction. I'm not sure we're going to get one, but I think it would be healthy for this market rally.

Stocks are trading at a forward PE multiple of 13, in 2007 they were trading at a forward PE of 17, so while I think they're slightly ahead of themselves, I think there's a lot of money sitting on the sideline that may flow into equities as the bond market starts to break down.

there was a great article in the WSJ earlier this week about the demise of RIM and specifically the change of how corporations treat employee phones. back in 2007 kenny the kangaroo's buddy worked for a big bank and had a company issued blackberry. in the matter of 5 years, having a second, company issued phone is more or less gone. that has to have killed RIM.

KennyTheKangaroo wrote:there was a great article in the WSJ earlier this week about the demise of RIM and specifically the change of how corporations treat employee phones. back in 2007 kenny the kangaroo's buddy worked for a big bank and had a company issued blackberry. in the matter of 5 years, having a second, company issued phone is more or less gone. that has to have killed RIM.

They've even given an acronym to it BYOD. Bring Your Own Device.

It's a security guy/girls nightmare. One thing about the Blackberry, it was always a very secure platform.

On the larger picture, I'm not liking this market at all right now. The Macro economic indicators are turning bearish and Gold is breaking out. That 10% pullback can't come soon enough.

ExPatriatePen wrote:At 8:30am this morning the jobs report comes out of the DoL.

I'm going out on a limb and going to predict that not only is it disappointing, but that it will move the overall market lower.

Edit: the numbers are out and they're pretty much exactly spot-on consensus opinion.

Market is shrugging it off with a big meh.

Job growth over the last three months:

247k - November196k - December157k - January

It looks like deceleration to me... The unemployment rate climbs to 7.9

Now that the market has had a few minutes to digest the numbers, they don't look so good.

You should know by now that the market is decoupled from the first Friday of the month jobs report. As long as there isn't some totally unexpected number, the market will continue to inch upward as long as the Fed keeps the spigot open, at least in the near term.

The report is useless. It's +/- 100K. It will get revised next month and nobody will bat an eye at what the delta between what was reported for January on 1Feb and 1Mar really means.